DRESSED TO HEMPRESS
With legalization of cannabis, hemp could finally be having its high fashion moment. Toronto’s Marlon Durrant is a pioneer
Perched on a leather armchair in his Yorkville atelier and showroom above the intersection of Avenue Rd. and Davenport Ave., Marlon Durrant is rocking a creamy natural-toned, three-piece bespoke suit of his own design. Opening up his jacket, he reveals the secret pleasures of his craft, the impossibly detailed piped finishing on the unlined inside, as well as the silk backing to the vest. But the best detail is what you can’t see: this top-drawer suit is made from hemp.
Hemp fabric has long been associated with coarse, drab, duds, a feel-good impulse purchase you might make at a patchouli-scented hippie scarf shop. But new, more refined manufacturing techniques have the higher fashion world starting to embrace hemp. And Durrant has emerged as a keen early adopter.
A feature of his early years growing up in Jamaica,
Durrant long admired his parents custom clothing for its individuality and quality. An entrepreneurial stint in high school in Toronto involving custom t-shirts got him hooked on fashion. But it was in 2000 that he took the leap into bespoke, launching a custom shirt line, out of a briefcase, he says, by “calling up all my contacts and networking.”
Over the past 18 years, he has built MD Bespoke into a fullservice operation.
Keen to stay ahead of the sustainability trend, Durrant sought out higher-quality alternative natural materials. When he located Canadian suppliers of hemp textiles that met his quality standards, he began working hemp into the mix about six years ago.
“My clientele,” he says, responds to innovation. “They are business and cultural leaders, they are looking for the best, the next, thing.”
Today, Hemp is an up-andcoming sustainable superstar in the textile world. And hemp as lightweight and refined as this has the look of fine linen with more versatility. It “crushes” artfully around the joints of the body, but doesn’t crumple, so you don’t look like a used Kleenex, say Durrant.
Important when $2,800 is the starting rate for a bespoke suit.
Hemp shirts and suits make up about 20 per cent of Durrant’s business, the rest is made from high-end European wool and cotton for shirting.
With the legalization of cannabis, hemp could finally be having its high fashion moment. Hemp has always been connected to marijuana because they are both a species of cannabis. However, only marijuana has enough THC to induce psychoactive effects. And le- galization has started the process of destigmatization not just for marijuana but for the eco-friendly hemp fibre, too.
“It is a pretty exciting time, with the global fibre gap,” says eco-fibre advocate Kelly Drennan, who as the executive director of Fashion Takes Action has been working in fashion sustainability sector for 12 years and has watched acceptance grow. The gap refers to what will happen when resourceheavy fibres such as cotton run out of sufficient space and water to meet demand.
“There is a huge opportunity for hemp.” Drennan says hemp can be used in any fashion, decor or industrial purposes as a lower-impact choice than cotton.
Hemp is one of the rare fibres that can grow in Canada, she says. Flax, used to make linen, is the other. She adds that textile hemp has many standout qualities: it holds its shape and is long lasting, with no degeneration in the light. In fact, it gets softer and better with wear, she says.
The use of cotton is expected to fall out of favour. It is resource intensive, requires the use of pesticides, and it sheds causing both water pollution and pollution in the air through the release of micro-particles, Drennan says. Also it doesn’t grow north of the 49th parallel.
“Hemp, by contrast, is a higher fibre yield, and uses 50 per cent less water than cotton to grow,” she says. It needs no pesticides and it is biodegradable. It can be blended with silk, linen and flax, to make softer, finer and more pliable textiles. There was a hemp moment, some six or seven years ago, Drennan says, when highstreet designers as well as Versace, Armani and Stella McCartney were experimenting with hemp. That was around the time Durrant began incorporating hemp into his work.
You can find hemp products as perennial favourites among fast fashion initiatives, such as H&M’s Conscious Collection. But the designer-level experimentation with the fabric appears to have waned. However, Durrant kept the faith and has been spreading the word, one suit at a time.
Drennan points to two Canadian labels that are doing interesting and sophisticated things with hemp, Wallis Evera and Nomad, both based in Vancouver. Both do sophisticated womenswear; Wallis Evera is a bit more grown-up polished for work and Nomad is more for chilling to appeal to a festivalgoing constituency. She says hearing about Durrant’s pioneering work in fine menswear is encouraging.
“Consumers are demanding sustainability, but traditionally not so much in menswear, where there typically aren’t as many options,” Drennan says.
Durrant says clients of all ages are woke to the eco movement and many want their suits to reflect that.
“The discerning client,” he says, diplomatic as always, “shows interest in every aspect of the experience. That includes their environmental footprint. Hemp has been a more popular subject of conversation,” since legalization, he adds. Clients look like they stick around to chat in the elegant private showroom, equipped as it is with deep seating and an array of top-shelf liquor and fine wines.
Durrant says clients usually start coming to him around age 28 to step up their closet game as they move up in the corporate or cultural world. Hemp has been a hit with this millennial customer. But it has also made inroads with the CEOs, directors, actors and ball players he outfits (a dead giveaway is a suit for a 7-plus-footer hang- ing in studio) and other familiar faces around town and internationally. He can’t name-drop. “We offer a private lifestyle experience, which caters to our client’s individual needs.”
When he started out, he came up with the concept of a “tailor’s dozen” of shirts — one better than a baker’s dozen; clients get 14 shirts, but pay for 12. They arrive in a custom box, handmade by Durrant’s father in the garage. Now bespoke does cost — $325 per shirt, so it’s not chump change — but “these will last you forever,” Durrant says.
He offers detachable collars and cuffs and orders extra fabric to hold onto to make replacements. Clients can mix in tux shirts, if black tie is a regular occurrence in their lives. And they can mix in hemp shirts, with specially made venting under the arms and at the back to provide extra coolness for both tropical climes and tough days at the office. For travelling safely, there is a little hidden pocket inside the hemp shirts, to hide cash.
Durrant has a factory in the Toronto suburbs for his shirts, and of course the suiting is done on site. Thus most everything is locally made. His wools are from Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. But the hemp is from Canadian sources.
As Canada is now on the leading edge of the recreational cannabis frontier, perhaps our homegrown hemp will become synonymous with the thoughtful fashion frontier, too.